


Mission: Eavesdropping and Normalcy

by Maat (maat_seshat)



Category: Gunslinger Girl
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-12-20
Updated: 2008-12-20
Packaged: 2018-01-25 08:52:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1642574
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maat_seshat/pseuds/Maat
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Triela had never liked fine restaurants, but she could handle an assignment anywhere.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Mission: Eavesdropping and Normalcy

**Author's Note:**

> Major thanks to Truth for the beta.
> 
> Written for Bananastasia

 

 

Triela hadn't liked fine restaurants even before Henrietta had tried to stab a waiter in the back and made their handlers even more paranoid about the conditioning. She didn't like the miniature suit that Hilshire dressed her in, she didn't like sitting calmly in a room filled with strangers holding knives any more than Henrietta had, even if she was better about hiding it, and she didn't like having a test disguised as a treat. The only fond memory that she had of that first meal out was that afterwards they finally started letting her go out into the field without Hilshire constantly under foot. Everyone tended to forget it now, with Henrietta to worry about (and Triela was _grateful_ for that), but Triela had been the one with the lowest levels of conditioning before Henrietta. 

She remembered the nagging voices. "Just use the conditioning, Hilshire. That's what it's there for." "Don't you want to get out into the field faster?" "Angelica's shown that the conditioning works well on the girls. They're just not sure about you using so little." Apparently Hilshire had guessed right, though, because here she was at the same restaurant again, with the cover of years of being that cute girl who always came with her stepbrother, trying to eavesdrop on what they thought was a negotiation between the mafia and the Padania. 

She focused on her ears, trying her best to ignore the waiter gathering their plates and utensils. She could feel the twinges of conditioning urging her to panic, panic and protect Hilshire, and neutralize those weapons. It wasn't opposed very well by the other conditioning that told her to obey orders and act like a normal girl. No wonder Henrietta had lost control. Her fingers clenched in the white cloth napkin, a convulsive twitch that made Hilshire's eyes flick down to her hands, then come back up to meet her eyes quizzically. She smiled sourly at him as she picked up the dessert menu. 

"Is there anything interesting?" he asked, sounding as stiff as he always did. 

"Well, I'm going to have to stay here a while longer," _to keep listening, you idiot_ , "to finish dessert. So I hope you don't have somewhere better to be." 

He raised his eyebrows slightly, but she wasn't sure if that was moving the skin or if there really had been crinkles around his eyes for a moment. "Enjoy your sugar."

"I don't have a really bad sweet tooth. Claes and Henrietta are worse than I am." She scowled at the menu. "I'm getting the fruit salad." 

"Of course," he said, sounding absent-minded or bored or just not like he was listening. She wondered if he would remember for the next restaurant assignment. She would have filed it away in her memory. She shoved the menu across the table and sighed impatiently when he just looked at it. She could tell he wasn't reading it; his eyes weren't tracking. 

"Pick something," she snapped. She opened her mouth to say more, and shut it abruptly when the targets two tables over finally, _finally_ started saying something interesting. 

"...might need more information to take him down," the Padania man was mumbling. 

"...Secret police...more tricky..."

"Triela?" Hilshire asked, after a moment, then shut up when she pointedly looked at him and the menu in his hand and not at the people two tables down behind her. 

The guy's voice got stronger. He must be getting more irritated, and Triela muffled a satisfied smile; they never could work together very well. "You're the ones with all the contacts in the military police, and this is your guy you want quiet. We're not about to risk our agents on finding someone we don't care about in this new security muddle of antiterrorism. You find him; we make it look like a general attack on security rather than a mafia hit. Take it or leave it."

The other guy's reply was too quiet to hear, and Triela couldn't resist a hint of bared teeth. She hated competent mafia. They made everything more complicated and usually led to trips all over Italy at inconvenient moments. Great. Now even the Padania guy was calming down, and the waiter was heading purposefully over to interrupt her ineffective listening. She ignored him, concentrating fiercely on the barely-inaudible murmuring. "Everyone's heard...new section...dangerous..." 

"...not really." 

A snort. "Caught your guy, didn't they." Ah, he was getting upset again. "And the only reason we've been hit worse is that they're looking for us."

"Keep your voice down," the mafia man hissed, in a tone that he should have known was guaranteed to carry. "Look...want...not? ...offering an entire year's bankroll."

"...not stupid." 

"What can I get you and your sister for dessert, sir?" 

Though Triela had known it was coming, he was still too close and, to her ears trained on the low murmuring, too loud. She only just stopped herself from snapping at him, and part of her was tempted to do it anyway. If they could use conditioning to make her run and shoot well, and obey orders in the field, why couldn't they use it to make behaving normally in public easier? She didn't do anything, though, just sat there tamely enough that Hilshire didn't even look at her as he ordered for them.

"A fruit macedonia, and biscotti, please."

"Would you like any coffee or tea to go with those?"

Triela kept her teeth firmly clamped together. She couldn't hear anything from the target table. 

"No. No, thank you."

Finally, the waiter went _away_ , and she strained to hear again. "Look...contacts...hear something..."

"When?"

She had to time this exactly right. They would never name the meeting place loudly enough for her to hear, but if she walked past, they probably wouldn't stop talking, and she might catch it. On the other hand, once she was in the bathroom, she wouldn't hear anything. "I'm going to the restroom," she said shortly. 

Hilshire merely nodded, blessedly quiet.

She waited another minute, listening, and heard the rustle of papers. That was it. Demurely, she walked towards the bathrooms and casually glanced over. It was a picture of a stretch of shoreline along the Villa Borghese lake. That was going to be hard to cover. She got past them, and heard another photo hit the table. Before she could do more than begin a mental curse, the mafia man whistled. "Hot lady."

"Forget it," the Padania said. "She'll cut you off at the knees."

"Well, I'll be looking forward to this all month."

Triela couldn't look back, but she could imagine the Padania guy clenching his teeth as he ground out, "Just as long as you have the information for us by then, I don't care what you do."

By the time she made it out of the bathroom, the waiter was bringing the check to the target table and the desserts to her own, and Triela got the best luck she'd had all day. The mafia guy was still looking at that picture. And she'd thought he was competent. She loved incompetent mafia men. She was smothering a smile as she slid back into her chair. 

"Enjoy your dessert," Hilshire said, nodding at her plate.

"It won't take me long now," she replied. 

He looked at her again. "Enjoy your dessert," he repeated, and she stopped trying to swallow her grin. This time, she was pretty sure those were crinkles around the eyes. Triela picked up her spoon. 

 


End file.
